All Perfect Things
by fluidstatic
Summary: [The Penumbra Podcast] Give a lady everything he could ever need - a wide open galaxy, and a love to hold onto. See how he panics.


Struggling to my feet in Miasma's tomb, with the scream of the hatching Egg echoing in my skull, I could somehow still hear Nureyev. I couldn't make out what he was shouting over the watery hiss in my ears, but I caught desperation in his voice, heard him pounding on the door, slower and slower as he gave up hope. My knees tried to fail underneath me, but I pushed off the floor with a shaking arm, fell against the wall. I felt like I'd lost a limb or three, like the din of the Egg had torn me apart. Leaving a smirch of blood in my wake I stumbled, half running, half falling toward the control panel. My head swam, tried roll off my shoulders as I sucked stale ancient air through my teeth, focused, punched the button to release the airlock doors.

I saw Nureyev at the end of the hall leading out of the airlock, on his knees, head in his hands. He looked broken, filthy, crumpled with despair. As I ran toward him his head jerked up, his body uncoiling, his hands held palms up in front of him, as if offering me something precious.

"Juno... you're alive. But ...how?"

I couldn't respond. I was too glad to see him kneeling there, all wet eyes and shaking limbs, a perfect picture of grief cut short. He babbled something about the egg that didn't make sense, and then he laughed, a high giddy sound that woke me up. All at once I could feel my limbs and my face and the center of my chest again. Looking into his lean, soft face as it lit with shock and relief, I remembered how to speak. I forgot the blinding pain in my head for a moment, shook off the exhaustion in my spine and my legs. He was right. I was alive.

It all came to me, then, a perfect map of what had happened and why. The words fell out of me in a rush, louder and louder as I went along. I understood what the Egg had done, and how I'd survived it. I'd thought about erasing myself so many times, and it made perfect sense. Who hasn't wanted to wipe everything clean at some point, to start again? They'd found a way, and it cost Miasma everything. I was triumphant and furious at the same time. The effort of explaining made me dizzy. Nureyev held me up, one arm around my ribs, the other hand against the nape of my neck. I felt like I was high on a ledge, looking down at a sea of Martian blood, about to fall. I shook, tasting bile as it rose in my throat. It doesn't matter anymore, he told me, chasing my faltering gaze with his eyes, holding my shoulders in his hands, reining me in and anchoring me. I might have fainted if it weren't for the smell of him. He couldn't have been wearing cologne anymore - I mean, we'd been in that hellhole for weeks - but I could still smell the warmth of him underneath all the blood and grime, and it kept me on my feet.

He told me we had decisions to make, and that we were free. I wanted to believe him, but I couldn't hold the words in my head. He kissed me then, and I fell into him like a stone, kissed him back. He tasted like a spoonful of afternoon sunlight, like salt and copper and red sand. I saw a little of my blood on his mouth and hid my face in his neck, breathing him in, feeling all the adrenaline pour out of me. My pulse slowed a little at a time, my limbs weakening, until I couldn't stay upright anymore.

He carried me out of there as I went in and out of consciousness. I'd drop away and dream of the screaming pain in my head, Nureyev's knives flashing, the sound of Miasma's limbs cracking through the air. I'd be certain I was dead and he'd bring me back, gently.

"Juno... Juno. Easy, now. Nearly there. Stay with me."

I don't know when or how he called the cab, but I faintly remember him laying me in the backseat and scrambling in after me.

"Olympus Mons Central Hospital, and don't dawdle, now. He's dying."

That jolted me. If I was going to die, I wouldn't do it without saying goodbye to my city. I heard myself protest, at a distance.

"No... No. Hyperion General."

I felt him gearing up to argue but I pried my eye open, wrestled it into focus.

"...Damn it, N...Rose, Take me to Hyperion General."

He considered me for a moment, something complicated working in his dirty tired face. He rested his hand on my forehead. He was shaking.

"Yes, All right, Dahlia, dear. Save your strength, now."

He didn't have to use the alias I didn't ask for, but I was too far gone to call him out on it.

When we got to Hyperion General I was in and out of consciousness, but in a passing moment of alertness I heard him speaking with one of the shift nurses, who called him Mr. Rose. Whenever I was awake enough to catch his attention after that, I did the same, whether or not there was anyone else there to hear me.

"Sticking awful close to me, Rose. Shouldn't you be getting patched up?"

A soft chuckle that loosened the knot in my gut - "A few bumps and bruises don't warrant me leaving you to your own devices, Dahlia."

"Don't you get tired of sitting around watching me sleep, Rose?"

His hand on my forearm - "Don't be absurd. There's nowhere I'd rather be."

They couldn't save my eye, but kept me for a couple of days under observation. I was too tired, and too grateful for the pain medication, to care. Nureyev came and went, bringing me tolerable food and fresh clothes from who knows where. He told me he'd retrieved my car from the Oasis, but didn't explain how, and I didn't bother to ask. Now and then I heard him shuffling a deck of cards in the corner of the room, or scribbling something out on a scrap of paper. Mostly, he was quiet. I sort of wished he'd rattle on, to keep me entertained, but I didn't say so. He might have let it go to his head.

When the doctor gave him my discharge papers he listened dutifully to all the aftercare instructions that I didn't want to hear, and led me to my car with his hand on the small of my back, gripping at the hem of my jacket when I stumbled. I kept waiting for my depth perception to kick in, but it refused to. I let myself lean on the side of the car while he dug around in his bottomless pockets for my keys.

"There's a decent hotel not far from here," I told him, and he looked up from the inside breast pocket of his jacket to smile at me. His expression was so bright and gentle that I wanted to stand there and stare for half an hour, memorizing every curve and line of it.

"That's the best news I've heard in two days," he said after a moment, with the beginning of a laugh in his voice. He found my keys, flashed them at me like they were some kind of delicious secret. "Shall we?"

The hotel was fancier than I remembered. He remarked on the room, but I couldn't take my eyes off him (his hips swaying as he walked, buoyant on a pair of stratospheric spike heels; the geometry of his broad shoulders and corseted waist; dangling pink-gold earrings with little prisms casting flashes of light on his neck).

He asked me if I was really prepared to leave Hyperion behind, and I said I was, even if I didn't mean it. I'll probably always hate myself for that. When he folded me into his arms and told me how glad he was, and the smell of him came over me like a song, I kicked myself. He was too good, too beautiful, for someone like me. Even if he couldn't see it now, with the dim neon splatter of light from the street spilling over us and my body fitting perfectly in his arms, I couldn't shake the thought that I'd be the end of him, someday. When he spoke so reverently of a beautiful future, asked Isn't it exciting? I lied and said that yes, it was. I hoped he couldn't smell my fear. How could I be excited when the whole galaxy stretched out in front of us, threatening to break us?

"What do you say we start that beautiful future right now?" he asked, running a hand up my arm.

"That sounds exciting, too," I said.

His kiss wiped my mind of all that fear, just for a while. And God, that smell. That smell that said Come away from all of this, Juno Steel. Take my hand, lean on my shoulder and come away. It made me helpless and hopeful, and so damn dizzy. Peter Nureyev, I thought, Peter Nureyev.

He kissed and kissed me, methodically plucking off his earrings and loosening his tie without breaking away from my mouth. I unbuttoned his shirt collar and tasted his neck. He draped my jacket over a chair, hooked a finger under the shoulder strap of my dress. I picked at his corset and felt his hand creep around my back, looking for a zipper.

"How the hell do you put up with all these hooks and buttons," I muttered into his throat, and his answering giggle fizzed in my belly like champagne.

I kicked off my shoes, hummed against his collarbone. My hands found his bare chest, smoothed over his ribs. The corset fell to the floor, and we were swaying close together, tasting each other, almost dancing as he coaxed my dress away from my skin an inch at a time. When he got the bodice of my dress down around my waist he ran his hands down my bare torso greedily. With a twist of my hips the dress fell to the floor and I stood there in my underwear, suddenly aware that I hadn't been this close to naked in front of someone for quite a long time. The way he drank me in, raising his eyes from the dress on the floor, eventually arriving on my face, made me feel delicate and bright and impossibly lucky.

"Juno," he said, like I'd just given him a diamond the size of my fist.

"What's the matter," I asked, trying to sound glib, "Never seen a lady in his skivvies before?"

His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, then broke into a grin that took over his entire face, the kind of smile that I needed to taste. I stretched up and hooked my forearms around his neck, kissed him deep. He made a hungry sound in my mouth and I grabbed him by the belt, led him to the bed.

"Well, now, is there anything I can do for you, Juno Steel?" He was trying to sound cavalier, like Rex Glass might have done. I couldn't answer for a minute; I was busy trying to see all of him at once with the one eye I had left. His hands ran up and down my waist, his tongue caressing my neck. I made quick work of his trousers and underwear, threw them toward the rest of our clothes, and took him in hand. He moaned, loud and low, his head thrown back.

"I'm sure you can do quite a lot for me, if you put your mind to it," I said, stroking him, watching him shudder. "But, I..."

He was golden and lean and warm, and his cock was alive in my hand and I wanted, wanted. I couldn't say what it was, so I shook my head and knelt between his knees, skidded my lips across his belly, took him into my mouth.

He made a sound like he'd never taken a breath in his life, bent his head over me, and rested his hand on the back of my neck. He panted heavy and hot on the crown of my head while I sucked and licked at him. My eye fluttered back in my head and I let the smell of him carry me somewhere soft and dark and safe, where there was nothing to do but feel his hand on my neck and his cock on my tongue. I took my time. He throbbed in my mouth and stroked my neck and showered me with praise, in a voice on the verge of song, Oh, Oh God, Juno, I... You're so. So beautiful. I... it's so good, you're so... fuck. Yes, yes. Juno, Juno.

It was a beautiful place to be, but it wasn't enough after a while. My whole body hummed. I looked up at him, panting, the taste of him thick in my mouth, and tried to decide how to ask for what I wasn't sure I deserved.

"I can't... I mean. God, it's been so long."

"Tell me, Juno." His chest heaved, but his face was still soft, still undeniable. "What do you need?"

"I want... I need you inside of me," I said, finally, and something profound shuddered through him. He plucked me from the floor by the forearms, kissed me until I couldn't figure out which way was up.

"Lie down," he said, close to my ear, his voice ragged with hunger. His tone took any hope of disobedience right out of me, and I slipped onto the mattress in a haze. Before I knew it his face was so close to mine I couldn't see him anymore. My eye wouldn't focus, and for a moment I was irrationally panicked, overwhelmed by the strong lean weight of him on top of me, his thigh against my cock, his sharp teeth pricking my shoulders, his hand snaking down my spine and into my underwear, groping my ass. One of his fingertips brushed against my asshole, and I jumped; reflexively, I lifted an arm and pushed his thigh away from my groin. He sat back hard on his heels as if I'd shouted in pain, looking utterly wrecked with remorse.

"Too fast?" he said, "Oh Juno, I..."

I felt my face crack into a grin, squeezed the thigh I'd just pushed away. "No, don't beg for mercy just yet. I just... My eye. You're too close. I want to see you. Slow down and let me look at you."

He relaxed and that sweet smile came back, a small chuckle of relief bubbling up after it. I watched him drink me in as I wriggled out of my underwear. He sighed and took me in hand, his face reverent, eyes flicking from my cock to my face and back. My thighs fell open and I rocked my hips toward him, a little impatient. He cocked his head, as if listening to something far away, then reached for the bag on the side table and produced lubricant, a pair of gloves, a condom.

"Oh, uh. Thanks," I said. Of course I hadn't come prepared for this, I'd just been in the hospital. I still felt sheepish.

"Whatever for?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow at me. "This is protection for my manicure as much as it is your virtue."

"Virtue," I snorted, as he flashed a smug serrated grin. "You and your euphemisms."

"Call me old fashioned," he said, slicking his gloved fingers, leaning down to kiss my ribs.

He murmured to me as he worked me open with one finger, breathing with me, moaning when I moaned. When the whole finger was inside of me he blew out a long, shaky breath.

"Forgive me for repeating myself, but I can't begin to express... You're so beautiful, Juno. So, so beautiful."

I could only rock my hips against his hand, feel him inside and all around me, the smell of him seeping into my bones.

"More," I said eventually, and he gave me more; another finger, and another, while I panted and hummed and concentrated on letting him in, slowly, gently. It took some time. I wasn't in a rush. I could have watched him watch me forever, slowly fucking me with one hand while he stroked my chest with the other, thousands of stars in his bottomless dark eyes. Eventually he had four fingers inside of me and we were both sweating, panting, calling wordlessly to each other in the dark. His mouth hung open, his lips pink and full and trembling, a lock of night-black hair falling into his eyes.

"Goddamn it, I can't stand it, I need you to fuck me," I whined. "Your cock. God, please."

He made a breathless low noise and slowly, slowly took his hand out of me. The absence of his fingers sent a desperate shiver through my whole body, but then he stripped off the gloves, threw them toward the trash, and tore open the condom with his teeth, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. His face said Just a moment, just a moment. I ran my palms up and down his thighs while he put the condom on, dizzy with want and disbelief, this beautiful man, this absolute impossibility of a man, his warm body, the smell and taste of him like a garden I never wanted to leave, this man who made me want to believe in paradise.

He braced himself with one forearm by my head, and I kissed it, and we shifted around a bit, as you have to do when it's the first time. One of my knees went up, and his spine rolled like a wave as he shifted over me. his brow furrowed slightly, finding the right angle - and then, all at once, the heat and fullness of him emptied every corner of my mind. He cried out, his eyes wide as the moon, and I clutched at his body and held on, gritting out a moan. He was hard and hot and perfect inside of me, and I'd never felt anything quite like it.

"Oh," he said, "You... You're a... Goddess," he said, "Juno."

"Yeah," I said, nodding frantically because I couldn't think, could barely breathe, brimming over with the Everything of him. "Yeah."

I rocked my hips back slowly, then forward again, staring into his lust-wrecked face, impaled on him, suspended in his eyes. We picked up speed gradually until every thrust felt like a bolt of starlight flashing through my body, up my spine and out of my mouth, my hair, my fingers. I tucked my knees into my chest and fucked him with everything I had, watched his eyelids flutter and his shoulders flex as he took me, hard, trying to laugh, hissing through bared teeth that shone in the dim light. I felt him in every cell of my body, and I wanted more, more.

"Juno," he chanted, "Juno, Juno." I never wanted him to stop saying it. I clutched at him, bucking, whining high and loud until he froze above me at last, gasped hard, and shattered.

I'll never forget that blind trembling face, the way his orgasm slammed through him without a sound. I felt him pulse and jerk inside of me, and it made something deep in my chest uncoil and cry out, just as silently. He had no breath to moan with but I saw his mouth make the shape of my name one last time, and the whole planet stood still, and all that starlight he'd driven into me collected into a wave. My back arched, and my fingernails bit into his waist, and

"Peter...!" I heard myself choke out, as I lost myself to him completely.

When I opened my eyes he was frozen above me, his face blown wide with amazement.

"Juno?" he said.

His voice was smaller than I'd ever heard it, his eyes shining with something as wide and fathomless as the sky. I knew he wanted to explain, but the words wouldn't come. If I was honest with myself, they didn't need to. I touched his cheek with the back of my hand, ran a fingertip across his jaw, invited him closer. He leaned down, touched his forehead to mine, held his breath.

"Peter Nureyev," I whispered, an inch from his mouth.

The gift he'd given me moved on my tongue effortlessly, like it belonged there, and the sound of it seemed to unhinge him. He gave a tiny broken sob, exhaled, let go of something that he'd held onto for longer than anyone should have to. I felt a few cool tears drop onto my face as I combed a hand through his hair, just once.

For a long moment we lay perfectly still, fused together, two halves of something that had never been whole before. I loved him, and he loved me, and it was so much more than I deserved. He wept silently for joy into my neck and I held him, feeling his heart pound against my chest, staring the rest of forever in its endless, unknowable face. Uncountable tomorrows spilled out in front of me. I felt victorious but painfully fragile, like I was standing on the edge of a roof in a high wind. The fear of losing my balance held me in its teeth and shook me.

Does the fear of falling in love make sense when you've been given something to hold onto? No. Is the cruel decision living in the shadow of that fear justifiable? Of course not. Could I face the risk of destroying Peter Nureyev, the way I've destroyed everything else, after he's given me so much? I've never been strong or cruel enough to do that.

The moment broke, the way all perfect things are bound to do. He shifted away from me to pull out, discard the condom, wipe lubricant and sweat from my thighs. He didn't meet my eye for a minute or so, just tended to the mess we'd made, quick and quiet, occasionally dabbing at his eyelashes with the heel of his hand, considering the streaks of mascara that came away on his palm with vague disappointment. I let him withdraw into himself as he did this, processing something I didn't have the right to know.

When the mess was cleared away he stretched out and lay his head on my chest, threading his fingers through mine, still avoiding my gaze, breathing deep, thinking. Eventually he lifted his head, shifted, seemed to come back to himself. When his eyes met mine again at last he was smiling, as if that long fragile silence had been nothing but a mirage.

"You know, Juno," he said, rolling onto his back, pulling a blanket over us both. "Call me a fool, but I think I might have ...fallen in love with you."

A yawn cut his confession in half. His limbs were loose, his hair a charming disaster. The flush of color in his cheeks made him look young and bright. I don't know how, and maybe I never will, but he seemed to be getting more beautiful with each breath.

"I..."

I love you, Peter Nureyev, I thought. I shouldn't say it, I thought. I want to. I need to. But I can't, I'll only ruin it, and God, I'm sorry.

"If you're a fool, that makes two of us," I managed, and rested my head on his arm.

He smiled tenderly, his eyes so brilliant that it hurt to look at him. I made myself look anyway, because the sight of him loving me with all his might was worth the ache. He settled under my gaze, ran his thumb across the back of my hand over and over again. In a few painfully short minutes he fell into the sleep of a man who was certain he had me, and who knew I was everything he could ever want.

I lay there and watched him sleep, hour after hour. I wanted to have him, too. Wanted his laugh in all its forms, his infuriating know-it-all monologues, his inscrutable doodles and elaborate schemes. I wanted the certainty of his eyes when we were up against the wire, and I had to come in clutch or kill us both. I wanted a parade of his bullshit aliases, the slippery brilliance of his mind, his glasses sliding down his nose as he looked at me over the rims, reading me like a book. I wanted his hands patching me up when someone or something tore holes in me. I wanted him to say my name in every possible tone of voice, wanted him to scold me, praise me, console me, put up with me; hell, I'd stand and take it if he hated me. I wanted every piece of him so desperately that I worried it would melt the flesh off my bones.

If there's one thing I've learned, crawling up out of Old Town on my hands and knees with ghosts in my pockets and death breathing down my neck, it's that desire that burns this bright hurts more than it helps, no matter how much I try to deny it, and paradise is never really found. So when I'd taken in as much of his blissful sleeping face as I could stand, and the devastating sweet smell of his skin began to make me sick, I got dressed.

He heard me go; the sound of the door pulled him out of sleep. He turned his head, looked right at me, and said my name one last time. Adoration and dismay rained from his perfect lips, and even from across the shadowy room those beautiful, undeniable eyes begged me for something I couldn't give.

The moment dragged. I couldn't bear it.

I left.

If the good guys always win, then it stands to reason that bad guys get what they deserve. I don't know what I deserve, and I hope to God I never find out. But there's one thing I'm sure I don't deserve, could never hope to earn, and that's the heart of Peter Nureyev.

I take my lumps. The world gets meaner, colder. But when I fall for good, and it's only a matter of time, he won't go down with me. He'll keep running, reckless and bright, and as far as I'm concerned, that's all that matters.


End file.
